His passion for storytelling sprung one of the most lucrative and internationally popular media franchises in history. From the ranks of a family-run business, Stan Lee managed to grow the small division of a publishing house to establish Marvel Comics – a multimedia corporation dominating the comics industry.
A kid from the Bronx, Stan Lee was born Stanley Martin Lieber in NYC in 1922. The American comic book writer, editor, and publisher was an icon in the comic book industry with multiple awards achieved through his vision, hard work and storytelling ability.
He created superheroes who were “human.” Flawed with their own daily struggles in life, Lee is remembered for much-loved characters Spiderman, the Hulk, Doctor Strange, DareDevil, Iron Man, X-Men, the Fantastic Four, and more.
With ambition to create opportunities for other creatives, Lee founded the Stan Lee Foundation in 2010. The non-profit organization supports compelling literacy and arts programs promoting life skills that inspire the superhero mindset and empower generations to realize their potential, manifest opportunity and triumph over self-doubt.
Lee retired from Marvel in the 1990’s, remaining a public figurehead for the company with frequent cameo appearances in films based on the Marvel characters. He never stopped working with additional creative ventures until he died of cardiac arrest aged 95, in 2018.
His Marvel editor-in-chief successor Roy Thomas visited Lee two days prior to his death and revealed he was ready to go, yet still talking about doing more cameos.
Lee was inducted into the comic book industry’s Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1995. He received the NEA’s (National Endowment for the Arts) National Medal of Arts in 2008. His brilliance remains with us as his characters continue to dominate the comic book industry and the big screen. Lee’s words are truly cherished by all his fans as well as other creatives in need of inspiration to reach their full potential.
1. I don’t have inspiration. I only have ideas. Ideas and deadlines.
2. Life is never completely without challenges.
3. There’s never a time when I’m not working. I don’t take vacations.
4. If you are interested in what you do, that keeps you going.
5. Comic books to me are fairy tales for grown-ups.
6. The only advice anybody can give is if you want to be a writer, keep writing. And read all you can, read everything.
7. It’s a lot of work, but if you really have it in you, it’s not like work. It becomes fun.
8. I’ve been the luckiest man in the world because I’ve had friends, and to have the right friends is everything: people you can depend on, people who tell you the truth if you ask something.
9. With great power comes great responsibility.
10. I think people have always loved things that are bigger than life, things that are imaginative.
11. For years, kids have been asking me what’s the greatest superpower. I always say luck. If you’re lucky, everything works. I’ve been lucky.
12. To tell you the truth, I never thought of myself as much of a success.
13. If I’m half as good as everybody said I am, I’m far too good to be wasting time with ordinary people. But I seem to be spending my life with ordinary people, who are the best people in the world.
14. My biggest regret is that I don’t really have time to read.
15. Nevermore shall men make slaves of others! Not in Asgard–not on Earth–not any place where the hammer of Thor can be swung–or where men of good faith hold freedom dear!
16. While no one is expected to leap tall buildings in a single bound, our aspiring heroes will be tested on their courage, integrity, self-sacrifice, compassion and resourcefulness–the stuff of all true superheroes.
17. I have always included minority characters in my stories, often as heroes. We live in a diverse society—in fact, a diverse world, and we must learn to live in peace and with respect for each other.
18. It’s fun doing something that hasn’t been done before.
19. I wanted them to be diverse. The whole underlying principle of the X-Men was to try to be an anti-bigotry story to show there’s good in every person.
20. I had a publisher who felt comics were just for little kiddies, so he never wanted me to use words of more than two syllables.
21. The power of prayer is still the greatest ever known in this endless eternal universe.
22. Every day is a new adventure.
23. Some people will say, ‘Why read a comic book? It stifles the imagination. If you read a novel you imagine what people are like. If you read a comic, it’s showing you.’ The only answer I can give is, ‘You can read a Shakespeare play, but does that mean you wouldn’t want to see it on the stage?
24. So I’m happiest when I’m working with artists and writers, and involved in stories, whether we’re talking about animation or movies or comics or television.
25. Another definition of a hero is someone who is concerned about other people’s well-being and will go out of his or her way to help them–even if there is no chance of a reward. That person who helps others simply because it should or must be done, and because it is the right thing to do, is indeed without a doubt, a real superhero.
26. Reading is very good.
27. If you’re writing about a character, if he’s a powerful character, unless you give him vulnerability I don’t think he’ll be as interesting to the reader.
28. The thing to me that’s fun is trying to make the characters seem believable, or realistic. And it’s especially challenging when you’re doing fantasy stories, when you’re doing superhero types of things.
29. I used to be embarrassed because I was just a comic book writer while other people were building bridges or going on to medical careers. And then I began to realize: Entertainment is one of the most important things in people’s lives. Without it, they might go off the deep end.
30. I don’t analyze things too closely. I find the more you analyze, the more you get away from spontaneity.
31. My theory about why people like superheroes is that when we were kids, we all loved to read fairy tales. Fairy tales are all about things bigger than life: giants, witches, trolls, dinosaurs and dragons and all sorts of imaginative things. Then you get a little bit older and you stop reading fairy tales, but you don’t ever outgrow your love of them.
32. I suppose I have come to realize that entertainment is not easily dismissed. Beyond the meaning (of a work of art), it is important to people. Without it, lives can be dull.
33. The world has always been a comic book world to me.
34. Being a geek has become a badge of honor.
35. I don’t really see a need to retire as long as I am having fun.
36. Wherever we find news, excitement, mystery and adventure, there, too, we find the newspaper reporter. Always on the alert for something new, ready to risk his very life for a scoop and finding adventure in every corner of the globe.
37. I don’t analyse things too closely. I find the more you analyse, the more you get away from spontaneity.
38. Technology isn’t a villain. Technology should help, but if you just use the technology for the sake of technology, then you’re cheating your audience. You’re not giving them the best story and the best direction and so forth.
39. Comics are stories; they’re like novels or anything else. So the first thing you have to do is become a good storyteller.
40. For men must never feel a cause is hopeless–men must never feel an enemy cannot be beaten!
41. Virtually every kid is exposed to giants and ogres and talking wolves, and so forth. And magic. And I think you never outgrow your love for those imaginative, fanciful, far-fetched, fantastic characters and situations.
42. When you can sit down with a plain sheet of paper in front of you and make some notes, and, little by little, you see it take shape and become a concept for a movie or a TV show. That’s a real thrill. You watch it go from notes on a paper to a meeting with writers and directors and actors. I can’t think of anything that’s more exciting.
43. It’s just, it’s fun to stay in the game.
44. We’re living in a world where everything moves very quickly. We’ve become a very visual society, so I think it’s a very natural thing that people are captivated with the illustrations in a story.
45. Fans are almost always nice. I really find that they rarely come on too strong.
46. I think almost everybody enjoyed fairy tales when they were young, tales of witches and ogres and monsters and dragons and so forth. You get a little bit older, you can’t read fairy tales anymore.
47. To me, writing is fun. It doesn’t matter what you’re writing, as long as you can tell a story.
48. I never understood why people take drugs. They’re habit forming and they can kill you. I didn’t need anything to pep me up or make me feel more creative, and I didn’t need them to help me with women.
49. I guess one person can make a difference.
50. I don’t wake up in the morning and say, wow I’ve got a great idea for a story. But I sit down, and I figure well, let’s see.
51. I have a reputation for doing superheroes, but I like all kinds of writing. In fact, hardly anybody knows this, but I’ve probably written as many humor stories as superhero stories.
52. Comic books sort of follow with the move – if people see the movie and if they’re interested in the character and want to see more of the character, they start buying the comic books. So a good movie helps the sale of the comic books and the comic books help the movie and one hand washes the other. So, I don’t think there’s any reason to think that comics will die out.
53. I like all the comics conventions: The smaller ones are easier, the bigger ones are exciting…Each one I say: Never again. But they’re all great…These things are important because they keep the fans’ interest alive in comics. They keep the fans reading and their imaginations stimulated.
54. When I was a kid, I loved reading Sherlock Holmes. Now, you don’t think of him as a superhero, but he was so damn much smarter than anybody else.
55. You know, I guess one person can make a difference.
56. If I got a superpower I wouldn’t say, oh, I got to get a costume and put on a mask. I would say hey, I can do something better than other people. How can I turn it into a buck?
57. To my way of thinking, whether it’s a superhero movie or a romance or a comedy or whatever, the most important thing is you’ve got to care about the characters. You’ve got to understand the characters and you’ve got to be interested. If the characters are interesting, you’re half-way home.
58. The only time I go on the set is when I have a cameo to do in the picture. I go to the set and I do my little cameo and I meet all the people. It’s a great way to spend the day. And then I go back to my own world.
59. Just because you have superpowers, that doesn’t mean your love life would be perfect. I don’t think superpowers automatically means there won’t be any personality problems, family problems or even money problems. I just tried to write characters who are human beings who also have superpowers.
60. I don’t know where the hell I’ll be in 5 years. Maybe I’ll be producing movies maybe I’ll be on a corner selling apples. I don’t know, but I’m having a hell of a lot of fun.
61. I’m sort of a pressure writer. If somebody says, ‘Stan, write something,’ and I have to have it by tomorrow morning, I’ll just sit down and I’ll write it. It always seems to come to me. But I’m better doing a rushed job because if it isn’t something that’s due quickly, I won’t work on it until it becomes almost an emergency and then I’ll do it.
62. I’m very proud of being a hack. It’s why I’ve lived as long as I have, I think.
63. I see myself in everything I write. All the good guys are me.
64. America is made of different races and different religions, but we’re all co-travellers on the spaceship Earth and must respect and help each other along the way.
65. The pleasure of reading a story and wondering what will come next for the hero is a pleasure that has lasted for centuries and, I think, will always be with us.
66. These stories of people with unusual powers and unusual appearances, who do unusual things, people are always fascinated by them.
67. When you work with people whom you like and you admire because they’re so good at what they do, it doesn’t feel like work. It’s like you’re playing.
68. If there are people who like the work you’ve done, because of that, they like you and want your autograph and to take a photo, that’s really gratifying. You have to be appreciative.
69. We’ve got to be more worldwide. We’ll keep going.
70. Every day, there’s a new development. there;’s no limit to the things that are happening.
71. Most people say, “I can’t wait to retire so I can play golf,” or go yachting or whatever they do. Well, if I was playing golf, I would want that to finish so I could go and dream up a new TV show.
72. No matter how good a story is, if you’re at a newsstand and you see a lot of comic books, you don’t know how good the story is unless you read it. But you can spot the artwork instantly, and you know whether you like the artwork, whether it grabs you or not.
73. It’s got to come from inside of you.
74. There must always be those with the fire of rebellion in their blood! There must always be those who will dare to fight an unbeatable enemy! Only thus can the race of man remain strong and fearless!
75. You have to be appreciative.
76. No one has a perfect life. Everybody has something that they wish was not the way it is.
77. We all wish we had superpowers. We all wish we could do more than we can do.